For the third time since January, the Greek people are going to have to trudge to the ballot box. Once more they are going to have their say in order to untangle a political mess.

The Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras submitted his resignation on Thursday night to Greece’s president and requested that snap elections be held as soon as possible. The earliest date this can happen is September 20. And so, once more the campaigning will begin; the process of governance will be put on hold. Greece will be paralysed.

It was as recently as July that Tsipras made Greeks vote in a national referendum on whether the country should accept a bailout offer from Greece’s creditors. He did so because he was faced with the possibility of having to accept harsh bailout terms that he had previously promised to reject. He needed popular support for political cover. Now he has signed the measures into law, but at a steep political cost.

When the third bailout was passed on July 14, almost a third of Tsipras’ own party members either voted against the bill or abstained. Now, once again, he needs the people for political cover: with an extensive rebellion within his own ranks he must gain a new democratic mandate. Once more people are going to the polls to pull him out of a political mess. The popular will has become a political tool.

This is a fact not lost on Greeks. Shortly after Tsipras’ resignation, a prominent Greek lawyer told me: “I think there is real democracy fatigue in Greece. All these votes are creating political deadlock. Elections have become a way in which to overcome political disputes.”

She’s right. Tsipras has called this election to get rid of the radical left of his party and to proceed with the third bailout package which has been passed, but has yet to be implemented. With the radical wing of his party constantly sniping and opposing him his life was going to become far more complicated. He essentially has two oppositions: an internal and external one. He seems sure that he will win — according to the polls he is in an unassailable position. The lawyer also told me she had recently spoken to a candidate from the main opposition party, New Democracy, who said that he didn’t think New Democracy would get even 10 per cent. It’s not about the will of the people — it’s about internal political manoeuvring.

Party split

The hard left of Tsipras’ party, Syriza, called the Left Platform, is enraged at the way their leader has seemingly abandoned all of the principles he was elected in January to uphold. According to rumours in the Greek media several Syriza MPs — as many as 25 — led by energy minister Panagiotis Lafazanis, are now going to split from Syriza and set up their own party, which may be called either the Popular Union or the Unified Anti-Memorandum Front (EAM).

The latter is a carefully chosen name. The acronym is identical to the one that the Greek resistance movement used during the German occupation of Greece in the Second World War, the main faction of which was the country’s Communist party. The challenge they face is how to go about setting up a party from scratch and campaigning as an effective opposition in the space of a month. This is impossible. Even if all 25 members manage to win seats, which is far from certain, they won’t be an existential threat to Syriza’s continuing governance. Neither will the main opposition party New Democracy, which is still recovering from its unsuccessful campaign for a yes vote. Tsipras is almost assured of an election win. And he gets to rid himself of Syriza’s cohort of turbulent priests.

Even the German chancellor Angela Merkel is pleased by events, declaring that “Tsipras stepping down is part of the solution, not part of the crisis”. Where once she and Tsipras did nothing but lock horns, they now seem to be firmly on the same page. The mixed metaphors serve only to highlight the surreal disorder of the Greek crisis, with Tsipras continuing his journey from the radical left to the hard-headed centre.

But in the meantime the whole of Greece, once again, is forced to help him on his way.

— Guardian News & Media Ltd

David Patrikarakos is the author of Nuclear Iran: The Birth of an Atomic State, a Poynter fellow in journalism at Yale University and an associate fellow of the School of Iranian Studies at the University of St Andrews.